Week 2: Chapter 1 — "An Awful Grace"

1.The chapter title echoes the Greek playwright Aeschylus: "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God." Why do you think Voskamp opens with that quote? What does "awful grace" mean to her?

2.She revisits the death of her sister Aimee and the way grief rewired her family — especially her mother, who seemed to shut down emotionally afterward. How did that secondary loss (of her mother's presence) compound the primary grief? Have you experienced grief that had that kind of ripple effect?

3.Voskamp asks the raw question: "How do you live with your one wild and precious life when you know it could be gone in an ordinary Tuesday afternoon?" How have you answered that question — consciously or unconsciously — in your own life?